Indian Curry Mixes with Chinese Sichuan Spicy Cabbage: Result is Major Stomach Ache for the World!

For a while, I have been warning about a major conflict between India and China which will have world wide consequences. Forget about ISIS, ISISL, Al Qaeda, and the Middle East conflagrations! While our collective attentions have been steered to the nonstrategic/nonsensical bombings of the newly created ISIS, ISIL; or whatever new ‘terrorist group’ convenient to bomb is called, a real war has been percolating for some time.

In a recent article by Hari Kumar, 9/26, 2014, in the NYTimes, entitled “India and China Step Back From Standoff in Kashmir”, the reporter has described what I consider to be the real ‘hotspot’ of danger in the world. India versus China, a conflict that has been brewing since 1962 over ‘disputed border region of Ladakh, Kashmir…..having been sparring for decades over their borders, but the recent FACE-OFFS WAS UNUSUALLY LONG AND TENSE…. “[my emphasis].

Like most confrontations that have been kept at a low boiling point, or what we in the profession call, “Low Intensity Conflicts”or “LIC,” if you are chic. This particular confrontation some 16,000 miles away from the USA has no immediate impact on us. But unlike the self-created ‘phony wars’ of so-called ‘coalition bombing of ISIS, ISIL, or IS’, the Indian /Chinese discord will ring loud and clear when it blows out of control.

What do I mean?You know by now that China is completely bereft of water for close to 500 million Chinese people who live in the western part of the country which is primarily arid, desert lands. The only way that China can conceivably access the necessary water is to invade Tibet, depose the Dali Lama and then invade India which controls water rights along the Kashmir and Himalayan borders. This is not conjecture on my part, it’s a simple matter of GEOPOLITICAL IMPERATIVES that China must access the water in the Indian regions of the Himalayan Mountains in order to provide the necessary water/sustenance for half of its population.

While our White House and the neocons concoct nonsensical war scenarios and contrived beheadings in order to allow our military to exercise its weaponry, control energy rights or whatever; there is no evidence that anyone in national security is developing a strategic plan to diffuse this imminent war between China and India.

Why do I say it’s IMMINENT?

Two reasons compel me to say that President Xi has no choice but to confront India repeatedly with serious military intentions.

▪The first, as I mentioned, is the geopolitical imperative of water and greater fertile land mass acquisitions. Remember fertile is the key word here. Most of Western China is completely arid, bereft of any capacity for mass sustenance.

▪The second reason is what I had recently posted: economic distortions leading to social unrest and destabilization of China. The second reason seems more complicated; but it really is not. President Xi has tried to implement a long-term strategic goal of converting China’s working middle class from a cheap export-govt investment economy to a consumer one.

I believe that President Xi made a bad decision in propping up the corrupt real estate bubble that will cost close to $100B. I am forecasting that this short term tactic to avoid the real estate burst will not work; instead leading to massive local/regional riots of Chinese workers who had entrusted their banks and central government with their hard earn salaries. President Xi has set up unwittingly the scenario for bank runs and incredible amounts of violent protests which will exceed the normal number of annual riots which is about 75,000. This combination of the misleading economic policy and constant high altitude confrontations with India is deadly. Don’t forget to consider the recent re-arming of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, it all spells big trouble!

I am a concerned participant-observer whose major objective in national security was to avoid and defuse the conflagrations which would compel our country to enter into combat. The opposite of what happened in the Iraq Wars; Afghanistan Wars; Syria Wars..et. al. My job is to spot those areas where Indian Curry and Chinese Spicy Cabbage make for a very gaseous meal---leading to a possible NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!! Btw, please remember that Pakistan and India have been fighting on a daily basis over Kashmir!! That’s more fuel on this smoldering fire!!

What do we have to do?Divert our assets, military/intel/diplomatic, away from the Middle East, a historical unending fight between Shia and Sunni—toward South and East Asia.

In Chinese, we say that we Americans, can no longer be:

“jing di zhi wa“ [pronounced jing dee jrrr wah]

“We cannot afford to continue to be NARROW-MINDED; We must be open to NEW IDEAS!!”

Friday, September 26, 2014

When the oil/gas people want a war (in this case Syria) they will stop at nothing, you will need 26 mins but its amazing to hear Rita Katz from Bethesda tell how her group "found" the beheading videos first! Thanks Barry for staying on it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK_3Pn8IXcY

Recent financial reports dribbling out of China indicate that the overdue strategic reform of converting China’s economy from an export/investment driven growth to a tactical, short-term fix of ‘an overheated housing market bubble’ has begun.

It is not easy to manage a country. It must be impossible to make any sense of trying to allow a substantial growth rate of 12% which China has claimed it has done over the past decade or so. I say claimed because even Chinese President Xi has admitted to massive corruption through both the military and civilian sectors of the Chinese economy. For a while now, financial traders like myself, and more professional financiers have had serious doubt as to whether the Chinese have really attained any ‘real growth’ close to 12%. Not surprising that China plays ‘footloose with numbers’ when it comes to veracity and financial credibility. Yet I sympathize with Chinese leaders that have the huge task of managing the well-being of 1.3 Billion Chinese.

Once when I was in China, a very intelligent official calmly explained to me that when officials in Washington D. C. make a mistake that ‘mistake’ can be multiplied times about 365 Million People, our USA population. However, when the Chinese officials in Beijing make a financial mistake, it means that they have to multiply the consequences of that mistake by 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE. Quite a difference between 365 Million and 1.3 Billion!

I am not faulting the Chinese Central Committee for what they are about to do. I am simply warning that the Chinese super growth based on cheap labor which lent itself to a competitive export market now will be course corrected by the Chinese Central Committee by making endless loans to any and all government-owned industries. Now that the domestic labor force has been effectively converted into a middle class, the cheap labor has be outsourced through to Southeast Asia. Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia become the low wage labor for the newly-minted ‘Chinese Middle Class’.

The Chinese Government has accomplished in two decades what it took America one hundred years to accomplish. However, here is the fly-in-the-ointment for the new Chinese strategy. They have over built the housing market as a way to employ millions of urban/rural Chinese workers. Now countless cities have thousands of empty apartments, condos, and buildings that are being left to rot because there is no consumer demand for them. A Chinese housing bubble has been un-intentionally created, supported by a black market of non-governmental loans and flimsy real estate schemes that we have witnessed here in the USA in the early and mid 2000s.

America, unlike China, can handle different types of financial bubbles and aberrations because we have sophisticated central banking systems that can regulate the flow of cash to the regional commercial banks all over the country. Furthermore, we tend to practice a banking procedure that the Chinese have refused to accept, called mark to the market. In this accounting method, we reduce the value of a $1million note on the books to $50K if that is what the property is worth. So we write off the rest of the loan as a ‘non-functioning asset’ and it becomes a ‘liability’.

In contrast, the Chinese retain the $1M on the books at full value despite the fact that the same property is not worth anywhere near that price. Therefore, their housing markets become artificially inflated and continues to rise despite the fact that no one is buying and selling any buildings or condos---much like our bankrupt Detroit but on heavy doses of steroids.

I have a major concern about what the Chinese President and the four major Chinese banks are about to do. Instead of creating major consumer driven economic entities which is the way to turn their economy around, the four major Chinese banks have decided to pump more than $80B into this “Zombie Real Estate Market”! That means that these banks will create artificial mortgages, something akin to our subprime mortgages, which the consumer cannot pay off or hope to realize in any meaningful way.

This influx of cash will again inflate already over-priced real estate which has no basic value other than some artificially created number, and in short time there will be a collapse of the largest housing market in the world. When I wrote about deflation in Europe, I explained that the value of the assets and growth did not justify a high currency value for the all-tethering EURO which was really worth about half of its present value (0.85 to the dollar and not 1.27).

In China, the situation could be much worse. There is growth of about 6 % , based around a newly minted middle class which does not have anything to buy and refuses to become trapped by the increased credit flow provided by the Four Banks and the Chinese Central Committee. China will gamble with a full loaded gun on the notion that a short term solution of trying to prop up dead real estate assets which no ordinary middle class Chinese wants to buy ---will magically increase the Consumption rate of GDP.

I am afraid that the Chinese government has made a mistake, a bad bet on a dead asset which should have been written off---or ‘marked down.’ Instead, they will sacrifice $80B for a very short-term goal which will not work because dead assets without consumers are really dead! Tear it Down!When the Chinese real estate bubble bursts there will be a distortion of the world economy and we Americans must be prepared for it. The world capital markets are not capable of absorbing an economic jolt of a trillion failed Chinese Huans floating around aimlessly looking for a fading safe haven.

Yet the American dollar keeps growing in strength. We can thank the genius of the WASPS at Bretton Woods Conference in NH, who denominated everything in dollars from toilet paper to camel dung and Arab oil. So you gold, silver and metal hoarders keep on “hoarding” while the price of these precious metals keep falling further and further. Witness how low the price of these metals have gone while Americans have engaged in war after non-wars [i.e extended combat] all over Iraq, Syria and North Africa. Gold and such are antiquated assets that have diminishing real value in this new economic world market based on the good old principles of Yankee Pragmatism. Thanks to the sagacity of those leaders during WWII.

His history of professional malfeasance is legendary. I will briefly list some of the more famous ‘illegal activities’ that Eric Holder committed in order to become the Attorney General of America and when he got to office…..

▪Bag man/Fixer for the incompetent AG Janet Reno, retired ignominiously to the Florida swamps after massacring innocent women, children and men at WACO Texas.

During his tenure, Eric Holder continued to spread the ‘Gun Control’ lies over the country with the witting, dangerous help of the FBI; committing serious violations of the law against the US public. Be careful: FBI! You are still not out of the woods with your zealous participation in 9/11 and other dangerous executive travesties against the US public. You too, FBI, are not above our laws. Don’t forget that Hoover; Freeh; Mueller were/are all quite dispensable…

I have a personal grudge that goes far more deeply than the aforementioned travesties of justice. As one of those Americans who was witness to [I did not participate] the violent civil rights wars fought by brave African-American men like Medgar Evers, Adam Clayton Powell [whom I had met]; John Lewis and even Martin Luther King, the notion that some Queens-born “Caribbean Wonder” who attended all white schools and knew nothing about the Black ghetto experiences of the north and south yet, had agitated, once again for racial discord and internecine wars was personally disgusting and professionally offensive.

So how do two non-African American Mulatto Men enter into the forefront of American politics?The first, Obama, is the complete creation of a very powerful elegant, shrewd woman (part Jewish) named Valerie Jarrett. She is the Chicago Kingmaker of this effete, aloof, ineffectual POTUS. I have written about her indescribable powers in previous blogs. Next is Eric Holder who was discovered by a very smart Princeton Obstetrician by the name of Dr Sharon Malone, whose family was and is still quite prominent in the civil rights movements.

What do you think happens when Michelle Obama, a Princeton classmate of Dr Malone and Valerie Jarrett get together at the kitchen counter in Oak Bluffs, Martha Vineyard during the Labor Day Holidays? Along with another Princeton room-mate Angela Acree, whose family was also prominent in the civil rights movement, Obama and Holder are given their respective marching orders. If you think that women are not running the White House, you are completely wrong.

Like Mrs Woodrow Wilson, and Eleanor Roosevelt; as well as Nancy Reagan, Michelle Obama and her female Princeton cohorts made a wise decision to ditch Eric Holder.

Ostensibly the reason he is leaving is because of poor health. I wish as a conscientious American physician that was the true reason.

America has had enough of ‘tokenism’, ‘filial stupidity’ and general incompetency and wars. It’s now time for us to demand merit based performances and appointments. Its should not be skin color, or ability to be compromised or any corruption of virtue that gets a candidate appointed or elected. It should be their skill and accomplishments and their overall ability to get the job done rather than their ability to thwart the LAW or bamboozle the American public.

This is what congress (supposedly our representatives) and the public should demand of our next Attorney General. Let’s stop making it a “race-thing” and lets make it a competence and leadership thing. The AG is required to champion the Law not make a mockery of it as Eric Holder did.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

“After Six Weeks Of U.S. Strikes Fail To Dislodge ISIS in Iraq”, NY Times, 9/23/2014, By David Kirkpatrick and Omar Al-Jawoshy.

As I have said many times before, it is easy for a President to start a war; but it is exceedingly difficult to effectively manage that war; and usually impossible to win a war. Again we are presented with one more piece of evidence that planes, bullets, drones and inept Iraqi soldiers leads to nothing more than stalemate. Its a safe bet that these unwilling and unable Iraqi soldiers will contribute to an outcome of complete and utter defeat.

Defeat Squared if is such a concept existed means that we Americans have shed our blood, guts, and money/time in order to prop up a so-called , “Iraqi Army” draped in shards of raging cowardliness; ethnic infighting; and a military ineptness so blatant that it reminds me of a certain poem. That poem is called, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, an 1854 narrative, written about the failed British attack against the Russian forces in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War:

“Half a league, half a league,

All in the Valley of Death,

Rode the six hundred

“Forward, the Light Brigade”

“Charge FOR THE GUNS, ‘he said:

“Into the VALLEY OF DEATH…”

I won’t continue because I know that you get the idea…..

We are now repeating the travesties of foolishly created strategies and imprecisely mapped out tactics which are leading our own soldiers, be it in Iraq or Syria or anywhere else into:“the JAWS OF DEATH”…… “INTO THE MOUTH OF HELL!”

If our generals and military leaders cannot defy an incompetent civilian president who promotes unnecessary wars, it becomes even more incumbent upon our citizenry to cease and desist this inanity called, “Wars of Terrorism.” Clearly our legislators, as we have often repeated, are eunuchs bound by fear and self-preservation.

Like the Vietnam War days, I think that it behooves us to demonstrate once again in the streets of countless cities, towns, and counties over the USA to call for an end to these expensive faked wars or threats. Trillions of dollars compounding exponentially are wasted because our leadership is duped into committing atrocities RATHER than building our own country. I fear that we will be mired once again in the LBJ matrix where bread and butter must be traded for bullets, artillery, drones, and jet planes. All of which are completely and entirely useless and costly as this article shows once again.

If America refuses to act today, then your boys and girls will one day be called up before a draft board that will force them to serve in yet another pre-determined lost war like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq [three times], Afghanistan [twice] , Yemen, Sudan, Somalia…..Remember Obama was the candidate who was against all the aforementioned wars when he was the Senator from Illinois.

States should refuse to follow the diktats of this decaying Washington Cancer and these NEOCon puppeteers, I strongly suggest that all wars abroad cease and desist before we completely self-destruct. This time it will be around the secession of those states who refuse to follow the follies of incompetent Presidents, Military Leaders, and decaying legislators who represent nothing more than their own selfish interests. This war might be called the 2nd Civil War.

I am not a poet and I will not glorify the stupidities of military ineptness but twenty years ago, I did write a novel describing the rise of a SECOND CIVIL WAR…. The book was called, State of Emergency.

My book predicted this rise of an incompetent President like Obama, and the subsequent concomitant accession of more experienced governors of western states. This time I see Governors of states like Texas; Florida; North Carolina; South Carolina; Colorado; Washington and Georgia who will defy orders of Washington and go off on their own. This wonderful Republic of ours, can no longer endure these military excursions into the “BOWELS OF HELL.” Repeating the saga of the wounded returning to an indifferent public who cares neither for the unnecessary wars nor their dramatic carnage bestowed upon soldiers and civilians alike.

This country will teeter on the brink of destruction if our infrastructures, education systems and healthcare systems are not attended to properly. Quality of life and future of our country are NOT a concern of a 2nd term president out of touch with reality and a bought, paid, corrupted congress that attends only to nefarious special interests groups.

Start your grass-roots campaign to demand state secession from the metastasized tumor called Washington D.C. You have nothing to lose, but your own welfare and happiness. Please remember the immortal words of the Scottish writer, Robert Browning:

Monday, September 22, 2014

As the World Turns, Both Nuclear Pakistan/India are Preparing for a “Hot Melt Down” through “Mutual Assured Destruction!”

As international “twitter attention” has been cleverly diverted to ISIS, Syria, and Iraq, all comparatively small players in the much greater game of “mutually assured destruction”, we collectively have been remiss in ignoring the sandlot tit-for-tat wars arising between Pakistan and it’s inveterate enemy, India. Reading a recent article in the Washington Post by Tim Craig and Karen Young [for whom I have a lot of respect], 9/20/2014, titled, “Pakistan Is Eyeing Sea-Based And Short-Range Nuclear Weapons, analysts say”, I suddenly gasped for air. My God, I thought, had we not collectively dealt with the horrific nuclear weapons around the world?NOT SO !

How foolish could we have been to consider that in the middle of a potential military coup [once again] against the corrupt Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Pakistan would cease and desist its interminable obsession with defeating India militarily.

Why not? Since no one was watching them, including our overstretched and cyber/terrorist-obsessed Intelligence community?“Pakistan is home to two dozen extremist groups…” the article goes on.

Americans under the CIA John Brennan leadership gave the Pakistanis $26B which the CIA admitted was wasted. Yet our incompetence does not stop there.

Here are some more facts to consider about South Asia.

“Pakistan…first tested atomic device in 1998… their fears have deepened over the past decade amid political tumult, terrorist attacks [which our CIA funded]… and increased tensions [I added that] with INDIA, with which it has fought three wars!” What we got here are really Bad Hombres who intend to decimate hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent civilians on both sides.

Forget that nonsense about the contrived beheadings of faux journalists who can articulate their own eventual beheadings with Shakespearean monologues that would have exhausted Sir Lawrence Olivier. Pakistan and India are the real danger—NUCLEAR WAR!!“For more than a decade, Pakistan…. attempted to bolster its nuclear arsenal with tactical weapons-short range missiles that carry a smaller warhead and are easier to transport” So what’s India doing about this imminent threat?“In 2012, India test-launched it’s FIRST INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE…. It has more than a range of 3,100 miles…and next year, India will deploy its first nuclear-powered submarine…”

Two long-time enemies, both with genetic inbred plasma hatred of each other since 1949 are now squaring off –not with an ersatz scimitar in order to “cut off someone’s head”---but rather with FISSIONABLE MASS directed at each other’s populations.

So what does our judicious, sagacious President Obama do?According to a NYTimes article, by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, 9/21/2014:

“….because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reduction in return…” Its a stupid reaction to counter nuclear build-up of failed states like Pakistan by increasing one’s own nuclear arsenal. Didn’t we learn anything in the Cold War? Where were these so-called experts in the Obama Administration when the Nixon, Reagan, Bush administrations were heavily involved in bilateral nuclear reductions with the Soviets/Russian Federation? The current administration, slathered with the residues of incompetency and arrogance, might read a little about American Disarmament history. Seriously, is anyone home at the White House?

Maybe its time to call in some experienced “old timers” to engage in an effective new round of nuclear disarmament talks between India and Pakistan. Whats the worse that can happen? Maybe we can prevent the build up of new, useless and costly nuclear weapons and make the world a safer place? Obama has not recovered from the Libyan fiasco and we still have the dynamic duo of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice on the loose. Lets reign in this nuclear madness before it gets out of hand, again.

Below is a post from a reader. He is a farmer who gets angrier every year about how much he must pay in taxes and to regulators. I can attest to his work schedule: 7 days a week, starts at 4am ends around 8pm. He has been doing it for thirty years. He has a right to be angry about this kind of parasite.

Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky, born January 17, 1937. He is a former Democrat Congressman who represented Iowa's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977.

He sat on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of Richard Nixon.

He was outspoken saying that Nixon was a crook and a disgrace to politics and the nation and should be impeached.

He and the Clintons were friends and very politically intertwined for many years.

Ed Mezvinsky had an affair with NBC News reporter Marjorie Sue Margolies and later married her after his wife divorced him.

In 1993, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, then a freshman Democrat in Congress, cast the deciding vote that got President Bill Clinton's controversial tax package through the House of Representatives.

In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

Ed Mezvinsky embezzled more than $10 million dollars from people via both a Ponzi scheme and the notorious Nigerian e-mail scams.

He was found guilty and sentenced to 80 months in Federal prison. After serving less than five years in federal prison, he was released in April 2008 and remains on federal probation.

To this day, he still owes $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.

This is Marc and Chelsea Mezvinsky.

Ed Mezvinsky is Chelsea Clinton's father-in law.

Now Marc and Chelsea are in their early 30's andpurchased a 10.5 million dollar NYC apartment (after being married in George Soros' mansion).

Has anyone heard mention of any of this in any of the media?

Lying and corruption seem to make Democrat candidates more popular.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Congratulations to NYTimes Turkish Correspondent Ceylan Yeginsu, who was branded a “TRAITOR AND FOREIGN AGENT” in retaliation for publishing an article with photos detailing how Erdogan is recruiting ISIS terrorists right in the middle of Ankara.

My old nemesis, Erdogan, never fails to demonstrate his underlying dictatorial streaks of sadistic and ruthless repugnance for anyone who might reveal the truth about his double dealings with the American public. Erdogan enjoys making money from selling oil to “ISIS”; as well as creating the ‘necessary recruits for ISIS’ right in the middle of the most crowded section of Ankara, the Capital of Turkey.

In an article written by Rick Gladstone, NYTimes, 9/20/2014, entitled, “Turkish President’s Allies Increasing Pressure on Times and Reporter” states the following:

“It was the photograph in particular, which showed President Erdogan visiting a mosque in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, that appeared to be the catalyst for the backlash against the NYTimes and Ms Yeginsu.”

“…. The photograph implied a connection between the Turkish Government and the ISIS…”

“Erdogan called the article….. “DESPICABLE , VILE , SHAMELESS….”

ISIS is not a threat to which American bombers have to drop incendiary bombs or fly dangerous missions but rather it is a problem in which our glorious, confused military/industrial complex as well as the Executive Branch have to decide one telling factor: Will we or will we not, punish our Sunni Allies for creating, aiding, and abetting ISIS, the very group which our ‘culture of misinformation’—the ignoble CIA created and maintains? The answer lies not in our military prowess but in our willingness to admit our past mistakes; correct them; and then prevent our Sunni Allies and Israel from any further assistance to ISIS.

As much as our intelligence community likes to portray themselves as selfless, courageous heroes in endless TV shows [Homeland, Assets et. al.] and Movies [Argo, Zero Dark Thirty], they are bereft of any capacity or will to ‘neutralize’ anyone or anything other than Senator Diane Feinstein’s investigations into the ineptness of the CIA.

John Brennan and Erdogan stand side by side in terms of anti-American enmity and dishonesty. One is Turkish. The other is born of a ‘bad seed’ from the bowels of the Directorate of Intelligence Analysis [useless] and fed with the milk of egregious political compliance and hierarchical servitude. We don’t have to go 16000 miles away to seek our ISIS enemies. Just look inward toward Langley, Virginia as well as Ankara/Istanbul, Turkey. Yes, our enemies are right here at home and in Turkey. No need to use our soldiers to rid of us of these two menaces!!!

Thank you goes to: Ms Yenginsu; Joel Simon, the Committee to Protect Journalists; Amberin Zaman, the local correspondent for The Economist; Ivan Watson, CNN International and Selin Girit and Rengin Arslan of the BBC. You are truly courageous individuals!!

So Long to: Erdogan and John Brennan. Your collective dictatorships are coming to an end.

Alibaba: The Chinese E-Commerce Company will be worth Close to $540 Billion Greater than all the E-commerce in U.SA. + U.K. + Japan + Germany+ France combined! Congratulations Mr Ma, Yahoo, Soft Bank and, of course, China.It finally happened. I have tracked Alibaba for over a year, waiting anxiously to start buying the stock of this amazing e-commerce company, I found out that as a retail buyer, I could buy none! Such is the paradox of world economics and the IPO business. As a former Managing Director of a Investment Banking Firm on Wall Street, I knew a little about Initial Public Offering [IPO]. If the IPO is oversubscribed as Alibaba was, then the ordinary folks like you and me, would have to buy the stock after the initial ‘strike price’ plus ‘green shoe’ plus the ‘pop’. We retail buyers do not get not sloppy seconds but rather sloppy thirds, fourths and fifths.

This is how the process goes:

The owners of the company; Mr Ma, the employees and the major investors Yahoo and Soft Bank [Japanese telecommunications company]; had/have the right to commoditize their equity at any given point. If they need cash initially they can sell the stock privately. If they waited and held on in order to receive a greater price before the IPO, they could sell the stock as many of the Chinese employees did and created new start-up companies in Huangzhou—province outside of Shanghai.

Next there is the IPO phase, which has a ‘strike price’, in this case, around $60 agreed upon by major worldwide investors and underwriters like Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan etc. Is it fair that retail buyers like me and you who basically allow the IPO markets to exist because we support Federal Regulations and American Stock Exchanges [NasDaq, NYSE,] to receive the short end of the stick? No, but who says that capitalism is fair? Don’t believe these media pundits who claim that the markets are pure, and determine the true value of a company or asset.Let me explain my attitude, both positive and negative regarding this phenomenon called Alibaba.

This IPO demonstrates for once and for all that China, suis generis, is a free market system, despite all the right wing nonsense from the Republican Party that it is a Communist System. The Chinese have proven to be more market-oriented and entrepreneurial than America has.

Take Al Gore, ‘the inventor of the Internet’, counter-sued by Al Jazeera as a clear example of the ‘political cronyism, indigenous in our American entrepreneurial system even in the pure ‘start-up capital of Silicon Valley’. Al Gore, George Bush jr [Houston Baseball Team] and Bill Clinton [Worldwide Initiatives] are all examples of men who use their self-aggrandizement and powers of intimidation to extract out money from various financial institutions and corporations. Collectively, be they Democrat or Republican, they are not capable of starting up a company from ground zero with nothing but an idea and ‘sweat equity’ as did Mr Ma of Alibaba. This is the American Dilemma of Distorted Capitalism. We allow famous and infamous people to garner huge sums of money without having to create or start a business.

Thanks Jack Ma and Alibaba for setting a good example for the rest of us. Putin and Russia can learn a very important lesson from Alibaba. Instead of ‘privatizing’ valuable national assets like telecommunications, oil, gas, and other resources then alloting them to Putin’s KGB cronies, who in their wildest dreams could not run a hot dog stand without cheating the public, it would behoove Putin to stop his ‘incursions.’ Allow the brilliant youth of Russia to create ‘start-ups’ without wasting valuable time and resources of the Russian Federation.

In our own country, Obama has shown little if any leadership in fostering small business growth, allowing young people to start companies without the burdens of over regulation, complex tax structures and overwhelming baggage of student debt. Forget gun control! Forget terrorists! Lets make some business! Use federal dollars to support a new cyber-infrastructure that will foster economic growth. Allow hard working citizens a crack at being business owners.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Welcomed Invasion of 3000 U.S. Army boots into West Africa to Defeat the Ebola Virus!!! Great Work!

Americans have become used to reading or seeing our brave American troops fighting in far-away places which we care little about or know even less than nothing. Finally, President Obama has ordered our soldiers into Harm’s Way. This time, the enemy is possibly one of the most lethal ‘terrorists’ we have yet confronted—the Ebola Virus. Very rarely, do we Americans realize how many different types of assignments our U.S. Military engages in other than ‘war’ as we have seen it portrayed in the movies or in the media. For the most part, our military is portrayed as a pack of hot heads shooting their way in and out of hot zones of combat. Seldom have we witnessed the Army Engineer Corps reconfiguring our depleted sand beaches which we sun-worshippers take for granted. Even more unusual, is a picture showing the Army Engineer Corps building our power/water dams. Those pictures are not as exciting as ‘mayhem’ and technicolor ‘blood and guts’. Yet in many real emergencies anywhere in the USA or the world, the first responders that are required to be present en masse is the U.S. Military.

In Katrina, the Navy had hospital ships all ready for any necessary mass evacuations, despite the fact that they were not utilized by the Bush Jr administration. Another case of unobtrusive incursion into the arena of health is the unusual presence of the U.S Army which has the largest Ob/Gyn outpatient capacity in the world, offering professional services to females: civilian and military.

Now we have the present initiative by AFRICOM, our major US Military presence in Africa which requested that the President and Congress allow US Troops to enter the most dangerous parts of West Africa to provide a cordon sanitaire to prevent the spread of the Ebola Virus from one country to another. What this deployment really connotes is the underlying courage of our military personnel who volunteered on this most dangerous mission in order to save lives suis generis. Our US Military has been front and center in offering to sacrifice their own lives in order to save the countless thousands of African lives that are destined to die in this horrible hemorrhagic death, if the Ebola virus is not staved off and ‘neutralized’. It’s a near to impossible mission but it has to be done. I am very proud to say that our U.S military and the Executive Branch has stepped forward on this most dangerous of all missions. Accordingly, credit must also be given to the brave men and women of the Communicable Disease Center [CDC] of Atlanta, Georgia. The U.S. Public Health Service, a quasi-military /civilian organization set up about a century ago has also been mobilized to stop this dreaded disease. Clearly, the original physicians and health workers of the religious charities that first contracted this terrible disease years ago in Africa must receive our gratitude for their bravery and fortitude in fighting this contamination.

Although I have written about this type of dreaded world-wide epidemic in one of my first novels, Blood Heat, I must admit that I have never personally or professionally encountered an epidemic of such proportions and lethality as Ebola. At best, I had to worry about a break-out of Malaria, Salmonella, Giardia, Rabies and other less lethal pathogens. I want to wish the best of luck to our brave men and women, military/civilians who are being deployed to West Africa. Hopefully, they will also be accompanied by other brave men/women from China, Russia, Europe and the Middle East.

Ebola may unite all our armies into one large combat unit that can act as an effective ‘counter-force’ against the parasitic enemies of mankind. So lets put down our guns and, instead pick up our surgical masks and gloves in one simple act of universal defiance against mankind’s true enemy--- PATHOGENS!! Maybe the dreaded disease, Ebola, can unite mankind in a way that all other forms of intervention have already failed. Fighting a common disease in order to enact a universal peace.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Dear Pro-Independence Scotland: Congratulations for Scaring the Lazy, Laggards of the Licentious British Elite!

Remember that Liberty, Freedom and Independence was fought for by the American Colonies, composing of a large contingent of Scotsmen. We Americans, fought twice against Britain [1776; 1812; and even during the American Civil War]… and we turned out to be the dominant Superpower of the 20th and 21st century. Recall that your indentured Scottish “servants” and so-called prisoners were also ANTI-BRITISH COLONIALISTS purposefully denigrated by the British Monarchy, as you decent Scots People are today, by the German-created Queen Elizabeth and her parasitic scions.What became of these “Scottish Prisoners’ sent 16,000 Miles away from the Glorious British Isle? They became the most powerful economic/political fulcrum of the Australian Empire, dominating the Far East. When the Scots are debased and reviled for their burning desire to retain their “BRAVEHEART-CELTIC HERITAGE”---they are continuously shipped away from the crumbling isle of Inertia called Britain and sent off to far-away places where in time they create great fortunes and impressive countries.

As if it were not enough that the British exiled, tortured and denigrated the American Puritans and the so-called Australian Prisoners, Britain, once again, true to their sadistic and haughty national character, exiled even more Scottish countrymen to Canada, four thousand miles away from home. What became of these ostensibly poor, pathetic, illiterate Scotsmen? They became the most powerful economic force in North America, taking over the American Banks which were foolishly funded by British Sub-Prime mortgage money as well as Wall Street. These very same sagacious Scottish Canadian Bankers initiated the Criminal Prosecution of the London Treasury For “Illegal Manipulation of the LIBOR”---an international standard of banking. The Scottish Bankers were proven RIGHT, JUST and MORAL! Britain then hid in quiet shame, never one to discuss their past transgressions.

The reason for Scottish Independence does not reside within the “Crocodile Tears” of the effete Prime Minister David Cameron pleading mercifully for your understanding and retention within the ersatz English Union; nor do your cries for independence arise from your justifiable “snicker and sneers’ of that well-known dysfunctional British family self-proclaimed as royalty. Your cry for independence must arise from only one belief: that you people, after 300 years of servitude and compliance to the whims and caprices of an antiquated ruling elite are disgusted with the parasitic political and economic rule. Britain has sucked out the very marrow of Scotland’s cultural, economic and psychological essence .

Scotland has an opportunity to declare to itself and the world that it can no longer be a part of a 300 year old alliance which bears no correspondence to the realities of a 21st century Scotland. The nation of Scotland is filled with entrepreneurial desire; embedded in a rich heritage of overseas successes in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and embolden by a ruthless Celtic Culture of defiance. When our American forefathers declared their independence from England, they did not have the resources, manpower, or even heritage that Scotland possess now. At that time, only four per cent of the Tory population was willing to fight and die for independence from Britain. The rest is history.

Yours is a far less complicated cause with significantly fewer consequences. There will be no fighting or killing resulting from this referendum. All that you have to do is mark, “YES”!

“YES” to independence not for you but for your children and your children’s children and then on to even a greater posterity well into the 21st Century. I cannot emphasize enough, how important each of you will become to the future of Scotland. With a simple stroke of a pen or a cursor each of you will go down into history as part of the greatest nations ever born from the bowels of a presently politically/economically impacted England… the New Scotland.

Please remember that it was King James I, a Scotsman, who really built up England to what it is today. Therefore, in a paradoxical way England has always belonged to a Scottish ruler. Now Scotland has the chance to reconfirm that historical aberration and transform England from a USURPER of the throne to a benefactor of a Free and Independent Scotland. Let England deal with you as an equal and fair partner rather than subjects of the crown.

Remember Scotland, it is not only Britain that awaits your decision, in fact billions of citizens of the world are cheering you on in the virtual world of the internet. You will be the first Anglo-Saxon Country to declare independence in the 21st century. You might say that you will become the first virtually independent country in this new internet world of cybernations. Tell me truthfully, who better than a SCOTSMAN, can manipulate numbers, be they financial or binary internet codes? I, for one, do not know of any other SUPREME CRAFTSMAN!

May the Lord Look Favorably Upon One of God’s Lost Tribes—the 13th one, of course…. THE CELTIC ONE!!

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About Me

Dr. Steve Pieczenik is a critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators. His novels are based on his twenty years experience in resolving international crises for five U.S. administrations.